


on the same side

by patriciaselina



Series: The Parallelism Project [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Crossover, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patriciaselina/pseuds/patriciaselina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Hetalia/T&B crossover for silentside/die-forelle. First acquire two men named Kotetsu and Barnaby, and add the two men to an almost-empty Italian restaurant. Turn on the heat and add an overly excitable waiter and a strangely accommodating chef to the mixture; stir thoroughly before adding the pasta. Leave the two men to simmer with anticipation, and when the mixture boils and the pasta is firm, take out the pasta and add a phone call to Barnaby’s mobile. Finally, add a strange young brunet with dark eyes and even darker hair; mix in the resulting conversation with the cooked pasta. Turn off the stove. Good for one island Nation and one hungry veteran Hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the same side

Kotetsu wants to have pasta for lunch, and Barnaby knows that when Kotetsu actually gets honest and shows preferences, he should give the older man what he wants - especially when what he wants is actually good. (Even if it was Blue Rose who had suggested the idea; she had been dropping hints for Tiger to bring her along after all, hints that the old man had gleefully ignored in favor of bringing along his ‘cute little bunny’.)

That is how they ended up in this place - it is empty bar a table with a muscular blond and a quiet brunet; the chairs and tables are mismatched, and it seems as if each of them have their own story to tell. A cheerful Italian - with an odd curl sticking out of his hair - greets them at the front of the house, and ushers them to a table across the only other occupied one. The Italian gives them menus, smiles brilliantly, and strikes up conversation with the men on the other table. Barnaby thinks the three may be friends.

(Barnaby also thinks that serving him and Kotetsu with water from an expensive-looking vase is wrong. If there’s anything he knows Barnaby knows the old man will break it, and he is pretty sure that the Italian won’t like that.)

“What will you be having, Kotetsu-san?” Seeing his partner peruse the menu as seriously as if it was paperwork, Barnaby can’t help but smile. “I thought you were hungry?”

Kotetsu does not notice, however. “Oh, come on, Bunny. Everything just sounds so delicious, even if I still can’t pronounce them! Give me a minute, okay?”

The Italian who brought them in introduces himself as Feliciano, asks for both of their names - Barnaby speaks for Kotetsu who is way too concentrated on pasta descriptions - and takes their order.

“I’ll be having  _Tagliatelle al Mascarpone e Spinaci_ ,” Barnaby tells the Italian with a placid smile (and flawless intonation), fully expecting -

“Spinach pasta? Come on Bunny, I know you eat like a bunny, but choosing just spinach when there’s a lot of other stuff to choose from is just-“

“-overrated, I know, you’ve told me that before, Kotetsu- _san_.” The blond sighs, punctuating the ‘-san’ with a palm pressed to his face. “But like I always tell you, there is nothing wrong with wanting to eat vegetables.”

As the brunet mumbles something like ‘darned pretty boy herbivores’ from behind his menu, Barnaby decides to take things in his own hands. “As for my companion…is there anything you’d like to recommend? The chef’s specialty, maybe?”

“Ve,  _fratello_ ’s really good with tomato-based sauces! You see, Big Brother Antonio, the one who taught _fratello_  how to cook, was a very - “

Barnaby only realizes that there is an open kitchen because the chef’s crying out that “THEY DON’T NEED TO KNOW THAT, FELICIANO!” carries on throughout the four corners of the room (and so does the chef’s frying pan, which misses their waiter by a hair). The man in question, Feliciano, only smiles.

“Anyway! In that vein, I’ll suggest the  _Spaghetti con Sugo della Piazzaiola_  -  _fratello_  always did like southern recipes better.”

The chef sighs, deduces his brother means no harm and that the customers are not idiots (they actually seem to have good tastes, coming here, his mind supplies) and hence should be treated kindly. “It has spaghetti noodles in a tomato-based sauce, and has the meat served on the side - either pork or veal;” He faces the pair, and Barnaby sees the familial resemblance between the two brothers - down to that stray curl, but it stands up above the chef’s head, unlike the waiter’s curl which bounced behind his ear. “All in all, it’s a good, southern Italian-style pasta dish.”

Kotetsu’s face perks up in interest, and Barnaby keeps on talking. “Can our order have both pork and veal? See, my companion here is a carnivore - all tigers are, after all -“

“Still better than being a herbivore rabbit, Bunny.” Kotetsu’s smile quirks up on one end, morphing into a failed imitation of Barnaby’s smirk. The older man snaps his menu shut, finally too worn out to mouth Italian syllables on his clumsy tongue, and too hungry to read descriptions. “Whatever it is, I’m taking it. It sounds delicious, like everything else.”

Feliciano is watching their conversation of small smiles and body language, and he smiles at the two who seem too wrapped up in each other to care about his silent inquisition. From what the waiter’s picked up, he just knows that he has to make sure these two get the best that he and his  _fratello_  have to offer! “Got it! What about drinks?”

Barnaby - who Feliciano tells apart by way of his blond curls, green eyes and rose glasses - orders cappucino, and Kotetsu - with brown hair, gold eyes, tan skin and an easy grin like Grandpa Roma’s - asks for his coffee black.

Feliciano says “Okay!” with his brightest smile and runs off to the open kitchen where his brother is. “One order of  _Tagliatelle al Mascarpone e Spinaci_  and one of  _Spaghetti con Sugo della Piazzaiola_ , with all the meat you can find!” The waiter, who in fact represents Italy, smiles and leans in closer to his brother’s ear. “And make it special,  _fratello_ ~ They’re a couple!”

Now, Lovino - South Italy, the chef, had been preparing the tagliatelle while his little brother said that, and thus had almost dropped the pan he was holding. In a harsh whisper, he answers back, “What? That lady-looking blond and that goofy brunet? Surely they didn’t just  _tell_  you they were together, Feli…”

“Well, they didn’t,” Feliciano says back from behind the espresso machine, almost in a sing-song voice. “But they didn’t need to - I figured it out on my own!”

“Idiot. The times you ‘figure things out’ on your own usually turn out to be crap, Feli.”

But Romano still smiles, and reaches for a big hunk of their freshest mascarpone.

===

It would be safe to say that Barnaby was enjoying himself. Actually enjoying himself, mind you! - not the kind of ‘enjoying’ that he said he was undergoing when he was actually not.

Because when their order arrived, Kotetsu had seen his partner’s gaze soften, green eyes with a subtle twinkle like the stars they’d seen outside Barnaby’s apartment window.

Barnaby was in such a good mood that the chef’s wistful look and muttering of “Damn you’re pretty. Are you sure you can’t be a girl instead?” was met by a small smile and a polite chuckle, not a dark glare and the breaking of bones.

(Though Kotetsu was the one who found himself wanting to break bones. Why was that, again?)

(Oh, right. He was still so hungry. Never mind.)

The plates set in front of him are enormous, almost an antithesis to Barnaby’s dainty little cream dish. Tomato sauce - with real tomatoes! - is mixed in with the noodles, which Kotetsu deems as hand-made from the slight imperfections that make them even more beautiful to him. Beside the plate is another one, this time filled with so much meat that Kotetsu’s stomach finds the audacity to growl like its owner’s namesake.

Across him, Barnaby’s scrutinizing a dish - the amount of pasta has to be less than half of the amount in his, but there’s just the right amount of spinach (how Barnaby could actually like spinach, Kotetsu will never know) and the smell of the cream sauce seems intoxicating as well, if his partner’s green eyes glazed over with happiness are any indication of it being such.

(God above, this man is  _beautiful_.)

“Oh, that’s the reason why  _fratello_  has few tables in here!” Feliciano is back at his brother’s side, looking over at the two Heroes. “Having fewer people at a time makes it easier for him to adjust everyone’s portions personally.”

“Like how I think that this gorgeous blond eats light, am I correct?” Barnaby smiles another one of his autopilot responses at the chef, and again Kotetsu wants to break bones. Which is a puzzle in itself – him, Crusher for Justice, wanting to inflict violence on unsuspecting civilians just because they flirted with his partner? That didn’t sound like Wild Tiger, not at all.

(And someone – the brunet from the other table – chuckles quietly, as if reading Kotetsu’s mind.)

“From his comments, on the other hand, I thought that you would prefer a bigger portion.” The chef turns to him this time, polite smile firmly in place. Seems like a nice kid to Kotetsu, frying pan-throwing and Barnaby-flirting aside. And Kotetsu did feel like eating half a cow when he dragged Barnaby here, so hell _yes_  that sounds like heaven, thank you.

The waiter leaves with an enthusiastic noise of excitement, pulling the chef with him. (“They need privacy, _fratello_! Privacy! So stop flirting with him!” “What the - I’m not flirting, you idiot! He’s just…just…” “Just what?” “Ahh, never mind, let’s just go!”)

Barnaby takes his fork, swirling pasta around the tines in tight loops. He’s almost mechanical in his motions, and Kotetsu almost feels embarrassed watching.

On the other hand, Kotetsu just shoves the fork in his pasta haystack and practically inhales tomato-stained noodle. His face comes out blotched red, and Barnaby hands him the napkin on his lap.

“Old man, I know you have the attention deficiency of a four-year-old, but do you have to eat like one as well?” As Kotetsu leans forward to take the napkin from his partner’s hands, the other man huffs and says, “No, let me.”

Barnaby’s fingers are warm on Kotetsu’s chin and tap on his cheeks like little butterflies. Kotetsu doesn’t even know why he thinks of his partner this way, how the seriousness with which those green eyes look at him becomes adorable and how tightly Barnaby’s lips are pressed against each other become a distraction.

(He thinks that he’s never thought about anyone this way since Tomoe, and that thought bursts into a pyrotechnic mess.)

“Anything wrong, Kotetsu-san?”

 _Yes. I seem to be having feelings for you, Bunny, and I’m pretty sure those feelings are going to make you want to throw me off a cliff._

As usual, Kotetsu does what he deems to be the best way to handle things, and pays his weird trains of thought no heed whatsoever.

“Hnn?  _Naa_ , it’s nothing, Bunny-chan.”

“Suit yourself,” Barnaby draws back his hand, and his cellphone rings. He looks the screen over, and says, “Kotetsu-san, I have to take this call. Do you mind - “

“No, no, I don’t. Carry on, Bunny-chan.”

Barnaby looks at him again and nods, excusing himself in a flurry of red boots and blond curls.

The man approaches Kotetsu then, dark eyes calm and dark hair offsetting pale skin. “ _Anou_ …Kaburagi Kotetsu-san?”

Now, it would be pretty safe to say that Kotetsu T. Kaburagi is not a well-known name in Sternbild, by any means. Well, maybe it did gain some remembrance from when he was wrongfully accused of murder, but still, not enough for random people to approach. People always did like Bunny better, after all. And he’s also sure he hasn’t met this guy before (even if a little part of himself argues that no, Kotetsu should remember this guy), so he decides to tread with caution. “Do I know you?”

“Maybe you don’t, but I do know you,” the other man says in a timid voice, almost as shy as Ivan. But then the man realizes what he was saying, and his dark eyes widen in alarm. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, that didn’t quite turn out the way I expected it to. I’ll just put it this way; hello, Kaburagi Kotetsu-san, I am  _Niho_  - Honda Kiku, I mean. You could say I’m a fan of yours, Wild Tiger-san.”

Flattering, but honestly…that was weird. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but did you work in the Hero business before?  _Ano naa_ , I didn’t exactly broadcast my name like Bunny did…”

“By ‘Bunny’-san you mean Barnaby-san, correct? And yes, you could…say that I was in the business.” A small smile from Kiku’s lips, and the sparkle in his dark eyes remind Kotetsu just how much he loved having fans. “For quite a long time, too; you’ve always been my favorite.”

The table Kotetsu and Barnaby are seated at is one for four, and Kotetsu motions at Kiku to sit in one of the chairs not occupied by Barnaby, the one on his left. (After all, Kiku’s companion seems to have been dragged off by the waiter, and is now being shouted at by the chef for some reason.)

“I’m flattered, Honda-san. Really flattered. Thanks.” Kotetsu says, mainly because he cannot find anything else to say. And also, because he wants to have something to say, for this man irks him. Despite the pretty face and slim stature, there is something about Kiku Honda that strikes him in Kotetsu’s mind as a larger than life being, and it throws him off-kilter.

“You could say I first saw you in Oriental Town, when I saw you save that girl…Amamiya-san, was she not? I knew from then that you would make an excellent Hero, Kaburagi-san.”

(Tomoe. Honda-san knew about  _Tomoe_. How did that happen, a part of his mind says. But Honda-san can’t not know that, says the other.)

“Wait. How did you know about that?” Kotetsu says around tomato-splattered meat, getting sauce on his vest in the process. That’s going to be hard to wash off, his mind says, inner voice laced with irritation. Kiku lets out another chuckle; again, as if reading Kotetsu’s mind.

“I was abducted by the gang as well, only in a different room than Amamiya-san. You didn’t see me - I got out when you saved her.” The man - was he younger or older? Kotetsu cannot tell - says without batting an eyelash, so maybe he’s telling the truth.

“Oh. Good thing you got away from the fire, then. But how could you get away - are you a NEXT, as well?”

“A NEXT? I’m flattered, but no, Kaburagi-san. I’m just human.” A short pause as Kiku laughs at some inside joke of his. “Well, for the most part. Let’s just say I was really lucky that day.”

And then Kiku looks at Kotetsu, really looks at him, looks at him like Tomoe promises, like Kaede cries, like Barnaby worries. It’s as serious as a knife to his heart and a bullet to his chest and Maverick’s sickly sweet coffee down his throat, and really, Kotetsu should expect Kiku’s next words but he doesn’t.

“Amamiya-san was also very lucky to have you, Kaburagi-san. And you, her.” And as quickly as he says that, Kiku backtracks, realizing something wrong. He was not supposed to say this much. Wasn’t he just supposed to observe? “I’m really sorry.”

“ _Naa_ , Honda-san, don’t be.” Kotetsu ignores his half-eaten meal for a minute, watching the silver band on his finger glisten instead. “Tomoe was the best thing that happened to me. But things change, and sometimes things have to leave, and I have my peace with that. ‘Sides, she lead me to where I am now,” and here Kotetsu’s gaze rests on Barnaby, whose blond head is pressed on the glass window outside as he continues speaking to the other side of the line. “And where I am now, I’m happy.”

Kiku - no, Japan, always and forever Japan, there was no use denying himself - expected him to say that.

America’s boy was good, the King of Heroes, and so was England’s, the Super Rookie. But Japan still knew he was right when he said that his Hero was the strongest of them all - both as Wild Tiger, the veteran hero mocked and trodden-on but still fighting, and as Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, the uncool widowed father doing all he can to keep the ones he loved close.

He knew he made the right choice, rooting for this man all along the way, from the blue-black Spandex suit to the white-green armor. Japan knew that no matter what Sternbild said (or what Alfred-san boasted) about Tiger not being the heroes’ King, he will always be the heroes’ heart.

(Because, come on. No ordinary human - or NEXT, for that matter - could tame Arthur-san’s  _tsuntsun_  boy to a compliant little  _deredere_  bunny. Kiku thinks he’s read enough  _doujin_  to at least ascertain that.)

“You’re happy, Kaburagi-san?” A soft smile finds its way on Kiku’s lips, perfectly content. “I’m glad.”

And for some reason, that makes Kotetsu want to blush. “Well…?”

Kiku looks at him, really looks at him, again. Kotetsu thinks Kiku shoots him these looks for emphasis, and so he stares back, but then -

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Memories come back and flood Kotetsu’s senses like a tidal wave crashing over a sandy beach, scattering fragments everywhere and destroying all semblance of order. A small boy in a bank, bumping his fists with Mr. Legend. Tomoe bodily dragging him to choir practice, ignoring his half-hearted protests. A church with flowers everywhere, Antonio quietly sniffling at his side and Tomoe radiant in her white dress like some kind of angel. Kaede’s little fingers clutching on him for the first time. His last promise to his wife. Barnaby calling him by name with a silent smile. Kaede saving him from imminent death, pleading his innocence. Kaede on his arm, clinging on him for dear life, calling him cool. Barnaby saying nothing made sense without his partner by his side.

It is only when tears drop on the tablecloth that Kotetsu realizes, oh, he had been crying. Maybe all those memories were too much. “Wh-who…?”

Kiku smiles thinly, shaking his head.  _Wrong question._

So Kotetsu tries again.

“ _What_  are you?”

“Kiku Honda, Land of the Rising Sun,  _Nihon –_ Japan.” Kiku looks at once so near and so far away, like a warm embrace and a child desperately calling out from afar. “I am known as many things, Kaburagi-san. But let me assure you, I mean you no harm.”

“Good. Because I almost had myself convinced that you were some kind of mind-reading NEXT threatening me with memory blackmail, and heavens that is just creepy.” Kotetsu takes a gulp of his coffee in a last-ditch attempt to assert himself that yes, talking up a humanized landmass that popped out of nowhere is a good idea. “That’s not what you have, right,  _Nihon_ -san…or Honda-san? What do you want me to call you?”

“Any of the two would be all right, thank you,” And here Kiku thanks his lucky stars that Kotetsu doesn’t take him by the scruff of his neck and haul him into an institution for being ‘creepy’. “I must say, you’re taking this rather calmly. All the other people I’ve spoken to in the past either walked out, freaked out, or both.”

“Well, after you’ve been saved from drowning in a robot suit by getting princess-carried by a man with impossibly curly hair, everything becomes possible to you, Honda-san.” Kotetsu says with his easy smile and his coffee in his hands. “So, how is it being a Nation? Surely it’s harder than being a NEXT.”

“You could say it’s almost like being millions of people at once.” Now, that is pretty hard to put in words, but Japan tries his best. “I don’t hear specific thoughts like you theorized, but I do catch on some of the general things, like changes in feelings and such. Like how irritated you were when Romano-san was, ahh, I guess it’d be called ‘flirting’ with Barnaby-san?”

“I was not irritated.” Kotetsu mumbles into the rim of his coffee cup, and a small troll normally in the deepest recesses of Kiku’s mind (the fanboy part of him, maybe) jumps up and down in Japan’s head, gleefully proclaiming that  _oh yes oh yes he is and don’t you believe his denials, Honda._

“Anyway, it’s more of like this – I can feel my land and everything that happens to it, and likewise, my people and what happens to them, no matter where I am or how minute the details may be. It’s less of ‘keeping tabs on everyone’ and more of an involuntary response – imagine having an extra stomach that rumbles separately from your own, or an extra heart that beats at a different pace. It’s sort of like that.”

Kotetsu raises an eyebrow, clearly not comprehending anything. “And I think I just needed an extra brain to understand that, Honda-san.”

“Let’s just put this way instead – sometimes, you can compare it to being a Hero. People don’t notice you because they don’t know you, but you watch out for them and protect them anyway.” Heroes were like Nations too, in that respect, weren’t they? Kiku hasn’t seen enough of how the others operate, but he has seen enough of Tiger to know that the old man could make a pretty fine Nation, had it been another life. “You and Barnaby-san put it to words best – ‘I’m not doing this to be appreciated by someone’. That’s how we work as well; we’re here for our people, constantly watching and wanting to reach out to them, but they don’t know we exist, and moreso, that we coexist with them, walking the same roads they do, living the same lives they live.”

Kiku Honda talks in riddles and frankly, Kotetsu is too stuffed with fine Italian pasta to fully comprehend the character study this man – this Nation – is giving him right now, but he nods anyway.

“I’m sorry, Kotetsu-san – I know that most of what I’m telling you doesn’t make any sense.” Kiku makes a little bow, his reflexive motion tic.

“No worries, sir! You see, I’ve been around Bunny-chan so much that people talking in puzzles aren’t even weird to me anymore. You kind of…just get used to it, I guess.”

With a wide grin that crinkles his closed eyelids upward, Kotetsu manages to cut through all of Japan’s carefully constructed pretenses and make the Nation stop dead in his tracks. There was nothing else to say, really, but –

“You’re a good person, Kaburagi Kotetsu-san.” Japan says finally, seeing the rest of his thoughts culled from years of observation dissolve in the face of this one fact. It was the same fact that made Kiku take back what he said earlier about Kotetsu possibly being a good Nation – Nations had to do bad things to save their people, and he’s pretty sure that this man, this Hero, would rather lay his life on the line than do that. He was too good for such a fate, and Kiku’s heart aches. “That’s what’s important. And that’s the only thing that matters.”

Kiku’s blond companion waves him over, and so does the waiter clinging on to him. On the other hand, Barnaby’s call disconnects and he is about to rejoin his partner. Life goes on.

“Well. See you around, I guess,  _Nihon_ -san?” Kotetsu offers his hand for Kiku to shake, apparently not fazed by the Nation’s enigmatic behavior. Japan is shocked at the sudden gesture, but shakes it anyway.

“Maybe, Kaburagi-san.” Japan nods to empty air as he stands up from his seat. And with a small tilt of one end of his mouth, which would be considered devilish on any other man, he continues, “Take care of each other, okay? You and Barnaby-san.”

Japan turns to Italy and Germany and thus doesn’t see how the other man reacts to that, but he is pretty sure that Kotetsu is blushing and sputtering. If only he could figure it out even faster, Kiku thinks. Settling the unresolved tension was better than building it all up, after all. Or at least that’s what the  _doujinka_  of this world thought.

But then again, maybe having things like this would be interesting as well. Maybe, if ever the two of them came here again (and Kiku has seen enough of their reaction to the pasta to know that oh yes, they will), he would focus on another point of view and see how good  _Barnaby_  was at noticing things for a change.

Barnaby goes back to the seat he vacated, half-eaten pasta forgotten in favor of looking at his partner. “Kotetsu-san? Is everything all right?”

Despite having a conversation with a man who his mind deems as the land whose heritage he has, Kotetsu feels eerily calm, as if Kiku has known everything about him all along, and has accepted everything about him that Kotetsu doesn’t realize he is. His mind refuses to dwell on the details, but it recognizes that Japan thought he did a good job, and it feels awesome.

“I’m all right, Bunny.” And why won’t he be? This was where he wanted to be. “Now go on, your pasta isn’t going to eat itself!”

===

 _fin._

**Author's Note:**

> The song in inspiration for this one is ironic in the sense that it’s titled “Princess of China”. There’s a little bit in the beginning that alludes to the rabbit in Wonderland, and the thing about being ‘hurt’ could allude to how pained Kiku is when he realizes how terribly idealistic and painfully earnest Kotetsu still is compared to himself. And I can’t help but remember the T&B dynamic with the “and all we ever seem to do is fight on and on…once upon a time on the same side in the same game” verse.
> 
> I also have no excuse for making Lovino flirt with Barnaby. We all know that he adores women and pays men no heed, but let’s just say when he looks at Barnaby, his eyes say ‘pretty blond girl’ but his mind says ‘that’s a dude, you idiot’. So in between being flirty and being rude, he tries to take the middle ground and be nice instead. Yeah, good luck with that, Lovi.


End file.
